Nanowire solar cells raise efficiency limit

March 26, 2013

A single nanowire can concentrate sunlight up to 15 times the normal intensity, scientists from the Nano-Science Center at the Niels Bohr Institute, Denmark and the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne have shown.

The nanowires concentrate the Sun’s rays into a very small area by up to a factor of 15. Because the diameter of a nanowire crystal is smaller than the wavelength of the light coming from the sun it can cause resonances in the intensity of light in and around the nanowires.

The nanowire crystal obtained a short circuit current of 180 mA/cm2 at one sun illumination, compared to 42.7 mA/cm2 for crystalline silicon (c-Si), the next-highest-rated technology.

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Comments (3)

Today, commercial solar is about 20% efficient. Nano-Wires and Nano-Rectifying Antennas (Nantennas) should be ready for mass production by 2017 thanks to a convergence of Roll-To-Roll (R2R) processing and Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD).

These have the ability to convert the infra-red portion of the solar spectrum at rates slightly below current solar technology. When combined with thin-film solar, commercial cells will be between 30 and 40% efficient.

Check out AltaDevices.com : flexible, high efficiency (30%), low cost GaAs panels. At a presentation yesterday, I held in my hands a solar charged cell phone, iPAD, and 20 watt dinner-mat sized panel for campers. Other prototypes are integrated into the wings of high endurance UAVs.

I have seen so many cool articles that hint that solar panel efficiency can or should be dramatically increasing very soon, but these ideas seem a long way off to actually making it to market. Wondering when we see some real world products that are actually in use and or making a difference. Also some universal way to accurately measure their efficiency compared to fossil fuels vs. costs to make them, etc.